3 Latest News Breaks in Emerging Tech – June 16, 2014

Corinna Underwood has been a published author for more than a decade. Her non-fiction has been published in many outlets including Fox News, CrimeDesk24, Life Extension, Chronogram, After Dark and Alive.

According to a report at SingularityHub, home improvement retail chain Lowe’s is about to step into the future and implement “holorooms” to encourage shoppers to make more in-store purchases. The Star Trek-like technology is comprised of a 20-foot by 20-foot simulator room that combines a number of 3D technologies. If you’re planning on remodeling your kitchen, but you’re not sure which way to go, you can enter the holoroom and use an iPad to select the color scheme and products from Lowe’s catalogue. A model of the room will appear in the iPad app, which allows you to manipulate them and walk through a floor plan of your desired room via augmented reality.

Cyber-enabled Dogs for Search and Rescue

In a ComputerWorld feature, assistant computer science professor at North Carolina State University, David Roberts, described the electronics-packed vest he designed for his Labrador retriever Diesel. The vest is comprised of a camera, speakers, sensors that detect the dog’s heart rate and other vital signs, motors that can transmit vibrations to different areas of the dog body, and gas and radiation detectors. The vest is also WiFi and GPS enabled. The device could change how dogs are trained for search and rescue missions in the future. Currently, handlers must maintain line-of-sight with their canine companions in order to relay commands, but a cyber-enabled dog such as Diesel could roam around a hazardous site while the handler used the sensors and transmitters to detect the dog’s safety and relay commands.

Nanotechnology Produces Wound-disinfecting Band-Aids

Nanotechnology is already being used extensively for medical applications. One of the latest, according to Nanowerk.com, is in the manufacture of graphene quantum dot (GQD) Band-Aids. Graphene is a form of pure carbon in sheets just one atom thick. For its very low weight is has incredible strength—100 times that of steel. Developers have created antibacterial system in which GQDs are combined with a low dose of hydrogen peroxide to kill bacteria—high doses of hydrogen peroxide can actually slow down the wound healing process and harm healthy tissue.

Related posts (5)

Imagine being able to turn any dimmable light in your home or office into a smart light that enables you to control your lights from anywhere in the world. Emberlight gives you the ability to do just that using only a simple plug and play adapter. According to TechCrunch, a new company called Emberlight has developed an application that works with your existing light bulbs, so you don’t have to spend money on expensive smart bulbs, nor does it require a wireless hub needed by many existing smart bulbs. The device is screwed in with the bulb and rests between it and the light fitting. It connects to the Wi-Fi network so the light can controlled remotely via computer, tablet or smart phone.

Imagine the convenience of being able to measure your household's use of water, find out why your smoke alarm is going off when you’re not home or check your insulin level, all with an app on your smartphone.

Engineers at a Georgia Tech laboratory have created a robotic arm that can be attached to amputees, enabling the technology to be embedded into the human body. The robotic arm has motors that can power to drumsticks. The first drumstick is manipulated by the musician's arms and electromyography (EMG) muscle sensors. The second stick is tuned into the music being played and is able to improvise.

According to Palmer Luckey, founder of the renowned OculusVR, the future of neurogaming is practically upon us. Neurogames involve a combination of technologies that incorporate the player's nervous system into the game itself. The technology may include items such as EEG headsets, brain wave sensing and eye movement tracking devices and heart rate monitors. Throw virtually augmented reality into the mix, and you have a fully immersive gaming experience previously impossible. Developers of PrioVR just completed a successful Kickstarter campaign to produce a full body tracking suit, which enables a gamer to explore a virtual world.

Swiss researchers at the EPFL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland) have developed a robot that can see objects thrown at it and reach out and grasp them. The robotic arm is 1.5 meters long. It has seven joints and a four-fingered hand. Its built-in cameras give it "vision," and its computer produces a mathematical model of the object's projected course. The robot is able to rapidly change position to grab hold of the object, such as a water bottle or ball. The team, headed by Ashwini Shukla, a researcher at the EPFL, have taught the robot how to reach in several directions and co-ordinate its arm and fingers. They hope that the robot will be of use retrieving debris in space.

Stay Ahead of the Machine Learning Curve

At Emerj, we have the largest audience of AI-focused business readers online - join other industry leaders and receive our latest AI research, trends analysis, and interviews sent to your inbox weekly.